


Piece By Piece

by matchka



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Gen, Mentions of Death, Pipes Survives Overlord AU, The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (IDW), mentions of trauma, otherwise canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 06:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10938978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchka/pseuds/matchka
Summary: Pipes survives the Overlord incident. He wakes up, broken and confused. Everything has changed. Piece by piece, he rebuilds.





	Piece By Piece

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this sometime in 2015 and apparently forgot all about it, or perhaps lacked the confidence to post it. So, a little late, here it is.

Pipes’ last moments are fragmented recollections, stitched roughly together with no regard for continuity. The shadow of something very large, descending very fast. Whirl, all twitchy perpetual motion and sharp-edged sarcasm. The realisation that he can’t feel his legs. The sheen of his own energon pooled on the floor, obscenely bright. His spark loose in his gaping chest cavity, burning against his palm as he drags his ruined little body across the floor, and the emergency alarm seems such a long way away.

The rest is a stuttering mess, a rapid-fire sequence of snapshots. The light of his spark fading. The brittle clatter of glass as he hits the emergency alarm. The ground rising to meet him. _Having a wonderful time._ Silence. And then nothing at all.

The nothing persists for a long time.

And then there is a light.

*

“Oh, thank Primus. We were beginning to think we’d lost you for good.”

Pipes can’t move, can barely see – his visual feed is dim, and he’s lost the ability to process colour – but the voice is First Aid’s. He’d know it anywhere. It’s been a long time since he heard First Aid speak. It feels like centuries since he last heard anything at all.

“Whuh…”

“Best not to speak yet. You’ve been offline for a long while. Give everything time to warm up, okay?”

Pipes is aware of various internal systems powering up, the tingling sensation in his servos as he flexes each individual finger. Every small movement seems to take a momentous effort. He strains to focus his optics; all he can see is the ceiling, wavering in and out of focus.

He remembers staring at the ceiling. He remembers the bitter tang of oil in the back of his throat. He remembers the sick crunch of his own plating as Overlord’s foot descended, again and again. He remembers it all with a great and terrible clarity, and he knows he has to move. He has to hit the alarm. But his limbs won’t respond to orders, and all that emerges from his vocaliser is a wordless cry, high and useless.

“Pipes?”

 “His spark’s pulsing off the chart.”

“He’ll be okay. Push a couple ampules of sedative, take the edge off. We’ve got to ease him back into this slowly. Pipes?” Another voice, gruff but oddly soothing. “It’s Ratchet. You’re in the infirmary, and you’re completely safe. Okay? I know this must be frightening for you, but First Aid and I are here to protect you.”

A flood of something blissfully warm flows through him. It’s like drinking premium grade engex. The tension fades from his limbs. In the staticky haze of his visual feed he sees First Aid, the blue of his visor bright and somehow reassuring. It brings clarity. If First Aid is here, then Pipes can’t be _there_ , lying in a pool of energon, listening to the fizzle of his own ruined circuitry.

He feels the gentle parting of his fingers as someone’s hand slips into his own, squeezing gently. Anchoring him firmly in the here and now.

“You’re okay, Pipes,” First Aid whispers, fingers tight against his. “Everything’s okay.”

*

As it turns out, a lot of things are not okay.

Over the next few days - between physical therapy sessions with Ratchet and psychological therapy with Rung, neither of which he feels entirely ready for – Pipes learns just how much he’s missed. First Aid says he’s been offline for almost two months. Ratchet manually overrode all of Pipes’ remaining functions, reducing him to little more than a brain module and a weakly-pulsing spark – a necessary measure, Ratchet tells him, a little apologetically. In that time, the Lost Light travelled through a wormhole and located Luna 1 and freed the Circle of Light from an insane Tyrest. It’s the kind of epic, impossible adventure Pipes has always dreamed of being a part of, and he spent it supine and useless on a circuit slab. He missed everything.

“Couldn’t you have woken me up sooner?” Pipes vocaliser is still adjusting to full-time use; it emerges as an indignant squeak.

First Aid is kind enough not to laugh at him. “Pipes, you were barely functioning,” he says. They’re working on his legs. He can’t feel them yet. Ratchet tells him it’s to be expected; his spinal circuitry was all but obliterated. “Even if we had, you wouldn’t have known what was happening. Anyway…” he shoots Ratchet a brief look. “It wasn’t as much fun as you’d think.”

“Still,” Pipes says, staring down at his recently repainted hands. “I wish I’d been there.”

“No,” Ratchet says, a little sharply. “Believe me Pipes. You don’t.”

“Why?”

There’s a long pause in which the only sound is the hiss of the acetylene torch welding the seams of his legs. Blue flame licks along the crumpled surface of his plating. He can’t feel a thing. He tries to tell himself that it doesn’t bother him.

“A lot of things happened,” First Aid says eventually, and although his answer is as transparently evasive as anything Pipes has ever heard, there’s something in the dull, tired tone of his voice that stops him asking anything more.

Ratchet switches off the torch. He taps Pipes’s thigh with the tip of his finger, apparently satisfied with its structural integrity. “We’re getting there,” he says. His smile is genuine, tinged with apology; Pipes knows Ratchet regrets snapping at him. “A few more days and we’ll be able to move you to the main ward. Maybe start testing out these legs of yours.”

Pipes brightens a little. “You mean I’ll get to see people again?”

“If you like,” First Aid says. “If you feel ready for it.”

The loneliness is the worst thing. He can deal with the aches and pains – his broken body knitting back together, plates growing slowly used to being properly aligned again. And the nightmares still come, but they’re less frequent now. (First Aid still sleeps in the berth opposite in case Pipes wakes, disorientated and terrified, which happens more frequently than he would like to admit.) But more than anything, Pipes misses his friends. First Aid and Ratchet are kind and diligent and always make an effort to strike up a conversation. And he treasures Rung’s visits – they always feel more like a comfortable chat than any kind of formal, structured therapy, although Pipes know this is probably intentional. Still, Rung’s gentle, genial manner and soothing voice are a tonic after hours spent alone, listening to the rattle and hum of equipment and wondering when he’ll be able to wiggle his feet again.

“Yes please,” Pipes says, a little breathlessly. The prospect of company makes him feel faintly giddy, and he grips the edges of his circuit slab so as not to tumble off. “Oh, I can’t wait to see everyone again. Do you think they’ve missed me? I bet they’ll all have so much to talk about….”

That look again, passed between Ratchet and First Aid like a warning.

“Well, we’ll take it slow for now,” Ratchet says, testing each of Pipes’ fingers for flexibility. They creak minutely with each manipulation. His joints feel several million years older than the rest of him. “I think our other ward resident will be glad of the company though.”

Pipes thinks he would gladly let Ultra Magnus talk him through the unabridged edition of the Autobot Code just to hear someone else’s voice. “I’m so excited,” he says, even as a wave of fatigue passes through him; he’s not strong enough for all of this yet, but he doesn’t care. He lowers himself back down onto the circuit slab, lets his optics zone out until all he can see is the pale corona of the spotlight directly above him. It looks like a tiny eclipse, or the afterimage of a nearby star. “Can’t wait,” he says, murmuring now. He’s distantly aware of Ratchet tinkering away at his elbow joint. He feels safer knowing he’s there. “Can’t wait to see everyone again.”

*

There’s only one other person on the main ward when Ratchet wheels Pipes in, but Tailgate’s utter delight is tangible. The other bot looks to be in as wretched a state as Pipes himself, propped up on his circuit slab and lolling a little to one side, as though he isn’t entirely in control of his own limbs.

“I just need to get some supplies,” First Aid says, settling Pipes’ slab beside Tailgate’s. “Do you mind? I’ll only be gone a few minutes.”

“I thought you were dead!” Tailgate’s visor lights up with happiness. One limp arm twitches, fingers fumbling blindly for Pipes’ hand; he takes it in his own, grip surprisingly strong and a little painful, but Pipes’ mouth curls upwards into a smile. “I never got to see you, but Cyclonus said…well, he said you weren’t in a good way. You know, afterwards.” He trails off, suddenly awkward, and it’s uncomfortable to talk about this – to piece together those shards of memory into a narrative, to acknowledge that they are a part of something _real_ – but Pipes just wants to hear Tailgate speak. He doesn’t care what the words are; it’s so sweet to hear his voice, the sheer enthusiasm in everything he says, the comical width of his optics behind his visor. It’s bliss, to be back in the world again.

“What happened to you?” Pipes asks. He shifts a little so he’s more or less upright, the dead weight of his useless legs still alien. He tries not to let it bother him. In time, Ratchet keeps telling him.

“Oh, I had cybercrosis,” Tailgate says, waving a hand like this is old, insignificant news. “I was dying for a bit, but I got better.”

Pipes splutters. “You got better? You don’t ‘get better’ from cybercrosis! Nobody ‘gets better’ from cybercrosis! How did-“

“My auditory receptors are burning.”

They both turn to see Swerve, grinning widely and flanked by a slightly harried-looking First Aid. He’s cradling a large bottle of what can only be Engex in his arms. “My two favourite walking miracles,” Swerve says, beaming. He appraises them both, apparently noting their completely lack of mobility. “Okay, not _walking_ miracles. But who cares? You’re alive! We should celebrate it!”

“If Ratchet gets wind of this…” First Aid mutters.

“Relax,” Swerve says, patting him on the shoulder. The gesture doesn’t seem to reassure First Aid. “I’m not going to get them wrecked. Just a little toast. It’s not every day your friends come back from the dead, and little guys like us gotta support one another, right?” He clambers up onto the end of Pipes’ slab, legs swinging as he sets three shot glasses out beside him. He measures out two generous shots of pale, glowing lilac liquid, and a third, much smaller shot. “First Aid says Tailgate only came off life support last week,” Swerve says, by way of explanation. “Better go easy on the juice for now.”

“Someone’s going to have to help me,” Tailgate says, a little sheepish. “I can’t quite lift my arms all the way up yet.”

Swerve looks meaningfully at First Aid until, with a sigh, the other bot relents. He takes the shot glass (and accompanying curly straw) with great reluctance, handling it as though it might explode at any moment. Pipes extends a trembling arm, closing his fingers around his own glass. His strength is slowly returning; Ratchet says he’s making good progress, considering.

(He wonders how bad the damage was. He wonders how he looked splayed out on the tiles, limbs crushed, plating crumpled inwards like the aftermath of a bad collision. Paintwork stained purple. Visor webbed with fractures. He wonders if they ever thought about giving up on him.)

“You good, Pipes buddy?”

“Hm?” Swerve and Tailgate are both staring at him; neither possesses the tact to pretend they’re not concerned. Somehow he’s grateful for that. He’s even more grateful that they don’t make a fuss about it. “Yeah. I’m okay. Pretty good, actually, now that you’re both here. It’s been pretty lonely by myself. Hey, I was thinking, maybe, if Ratchet says it’s okay-” a glance at First Aid, whose nervous twitchiness threatens to spill most of Tailgate’s engex “-maybe we could have a movie night in here sometime. Has Rewind finished making his documentary yet? Because I was supposed to watch the rough cut, only – well, you know – but he seemed really excited about it and…”

He trails off. Their faces are uniformly blank, devoid of emotion save for the minute widening of Tailgate’s optics, and the minor tremor of the drink in Swerve’s hand. And then the dread starts, a lead ball in the very centre of him, and he knows even before they tell him that something terrible has happened.

“Nobody told you,” Tailgate says, barely a whisper. “Did they?”

Pipes looks to First Aid. _You told me everything was okay_ , he thinks, barely able to contain the absurd rush of resentment, because none of this is First Aid’s fault, and he _knows_ it’s all for his own good, but he should have been told. He should know everything. He’s strong enough now.

“Nobody told me anything,” Pipes says, fighting to keep the wobble from his voice.

Swerve puts down his glass. His optics meet Pipes’, dull and solemn.

“He’s gone, Pipes,” Swerve says. “Rewind died.”

*

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does.

He and Rewind were friends. But were they really that close? Probably not. When Pipes thinks about it – when he lies awake in the dead of night listening to the quiet whirr of Tailgate’s cooling system – he can’t really claim to be close to anyone on the Lost Light. And that’s a fact borne out by the sheer lack of visitors he’s had since being transferred to the main ward. Swerve has stopped by a few times, once with an unusually subdued Skids in tow, plainly wishing he were anywhere else but here. Cyclonus had come by once or twice, although it’s clear that these visits are not for his benefit; he and Tailgate speak in hushed voices, the lilting cadence of Cyclonus’ accent pleasing to Pipes’ auditory receptors but too quiet to comprehend. Once, he saw Chromedome pass by, pausing briefly at the door, and their optics met for the briefest of moments before he continued on.

He doesn’t begrudge him that.

Because it should be Rewind lying here, not him. Rewind, with his head full of history and sunny demeanour, sharing movies and trivia and telling stories over a bottle of Old Corroder at Swerve’s. Even Pipes feels Rewind’s loss as acutely as any physical wound, and they were hardly best friends. It’s like a light has gone out. Rewind’s place in the world is horribly empty, and Pipes…

…well, what good is Pipes to anyone?

His legs are failing to respond to treatment. Ratchet is talking about replacing the entirety of Pipes’ spinal circuitry, but that requires resources they don’t have on board. They’ll need to stop off at the nearest planet. Pipes wants to tell him not to bother. What good are legs to him? He’s done with exploring. His forays into the wider universe have been uniformly disastrous.

(He remembers the utter disbelief on Drift’s face when he broke in at Delphi. The unbearable burn of his plates as the red rust took hold. He remembers hitting the wall after Fort Max shot him, drifting in and out of consciousness as Trailbreaker held him in his arms.

He remembers the vials of innermost energon clustered like stars beside Rewind’s inert body. He left one himself, anonymous in amongst identical glass cylinders, an offering nobody ever saw him make.

He’s done so little that matters. No wonder nobody told him anything.)

Pipes lies awake, alone, staring out into the dark, and wonders if anyone would’ve missed him if he’d never woken up.

*

“…it shouldn’t be too difficult to connect everything up. It’ll necessitate offlining you for a short while, of course, but you’ll be fine. Magnus says the detour should only take us a couple of days, and I’m pretty sure we’ll find everything we need on Hyperion…”

“No.”

Ratchet peers over at him, optics narrowed in confusion. “No?”

“You don’t need to. Make the detour, I mean.” Pipes looks down at his legs, fans his fingers out across the numb metal; the topography of his battle scars is so familiar he can anticipate the exact position of each individual divot. “It’s not worth it. I’m…it’s fine.”

Ratchet says nothing for a long time. There’s nobody else to hear them – Tailgate’s being prepped  for yet another surgery and the ward is empty save for a resolutely offline Whirl, who has somehow managed to knock himself out trying to headbutt his way through Trailbreaker’s forcefield. Whirl’s fuel intake aperture is so narrow that he emits a strange, whistling snore with each intake of air. That’s fine. Pipes doesn’t want to have this conversation in earshot of anyone else. He doesn’t want to have it at all, but here he is.

“What makes you say that?” Ratchet asks eventually.

Pipes isn’t really sure how to explain without sounding as though he’s wilfully drowning himself in self-pity. He’s been evasive in his sessions with Rung, although he’s pretty sure the psychiatrist knows something is amiss. Very little escapes Rung’s attention.

“It should have been Rewind who made it,” Pipes says, very quietly. “Not me.”

He hears the low hum of Ratchet’s magnetic field as he goes back to testing Pipes’ reflexes. He shouldn’t have said anything, he thinks, watching Ratchet tinker with his elbow joint. Now things are awkward, and Ratchet’s going to fix him up anyway, because it’s his job, and he feels obligated to. And then Pipes’ll have new legs, and he’ll go back to his old life, and nobody will ever talk about how he almost died.

“It’s hard,” Ratchet says, not looking up. “Right now, on the ship. A lot of things have happened in a short space of time, and adjusting to all of that – it’s enormous. Things change, and we have to change with them, but it takes time. Not just losing Rewind. Drift being exiled. Finding Luna 1. All that business with Tyrest. I…” he pauses to adjust a loose bolt, turning it with deft fingers. “I watched Ambulon die. Pharma killed him to prove a point. I tried to save him but there was nothing I could have done. On a ship this small, these things can be overwhelming.” Ratchet stops fiddling, looks up at Pipes, and there’s something very weary in his expression. Suddenly, he looks very tired, and very old. “You feel guilty,” he says, “because you survived and Rewind didn’t. I’ve seen it a thousand times. You don’t feel like you deserve to be here. In the end, what you feel or don’t feel is irrelevant. There’s no logic to any of it, Pipes. The universe doesn’t give a damn if you’re Optimus Prime or a waste disposal bot. I couldn’t control what happened to Ambulon, and you can’t control what happened to Rewind. You get what you get, and you make the best of it. That’s all any of us can ever do.”

He’s still trying to process Ratchet’s speech when he hears a loud crackle of static from across the room, and the slow scrape of unsteady limbs twitching against a circuit slab.

“Know what I heard?” Whirl’s voice is thick, his consonants slurred, drunk with concussion. Ratchet sighs. “I heard…lemme finish…I heard you got squished _all kinds_ of flat by Overlord. Oh yeah. I’m talking two-dimensional. And you know….”

“Pretty sure that’s enough, Whirl,” Ratchet says.

“…you know what else? I heard you still managed to drag your flat, sorry little self all the way up so you could hit the alarm. Even though your head was all falling off and stuff. I mean- ”one claw flails in the air, drawing a hilariously off-kilter figure eight “-that’s kinda funny, right? Flimsy little guy like you saving all our asses. Afts. Whatever. Point is, they oughta give you a Rodimus star. And a face. Hero oughta have a face. You’d like a face, right?”

“I already have a-“

“Ratchet,” Whirl complains, rolling dramatically onto his back, “my brain module hurts.”

“Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Ratchet says. “We haven’t conclusively proved that you have one yet.” He gets slowly to his feet; the creak of his joints is quiet but definite. He must be exhausted. Taking care of two largely immobile minibots is very demanding work. He places a gentle hand on Pipes’ shoulder, just for a second. Just long enough to remind him he’s there.

“Sometimes, he talks a lot of nonsense,” Ratchet says, nodding towards Whirl. “And sometimes, he doesn’t.”

*

Lying awake long after lights-out, Pipes is suddenly aware of a change in the ambience of the Lost Light. The omnipresent hum of the engines has gone quiet. In its place he can hear the creak and whine of the ship settling, the hiss of the air recyc system overhead. The ship has stopped.

He looks across. On the slab opposite, Tailgate is recharging peacefully. The latest operation has really taken it out of him. First Aid says it’s his last major hurdle, and it ought to be plain sailing from here, but Pipes can see how tired Tailgate is, how hard he’s having to push himself. Still, he’s relentlessly optimistic, adamant he’ll be up and walking within the week. _I survived cybercrosis!_ Tailgate keeps reminding him, visor glowing bright with pride. _I can do anything now!_  

Tailgate has only just progressed to sitting up unaided. For all of his bluster, they all know he’s not walking anywhere anytime soon. It’s a miracle he can even speak at this point.

 “Hey.”

Pipes looks up. First Aid is standing beside him. The white of his plating is bluish in the low light.

“We’ve stopped,” Pipes says. “Did we reach Hyperion already?”

“Emergency hull repair,” First Aid says, sounding somewhat pained. “Rodimus tried to slalom through an asteroid field. It went about as well as you’d expect.”

Pipes isn’t quite sure what to say to that, so he just nods. “Oh.”

“I need to show you something,” First Aid says. “I’m going to pick you up. Is that okay?”

Pipes barely has time to nod his bemused consent when First Aid scoops him up, remarkably gentle. For a moment, Pipes is reminded of Delphi, and of Ratchet; Ratchet’s face clear even through fast-fading optics, fingers a protective cage around Pipes’ limp hand: _I’ve got you._ “Where are we going?” Pipes asks, winding an arm up around First Aid’s neck so he can lever himself up, get a better view of the darkened ship as they pass through silent hallways. It all seems so different in the dark. Smaller, somehow.

“You’ll see,” First Aid says.

*

They step through the cargo bay doors and out into the world.

The light from the twin suns is almost blinding; Pipes lifts a hand to shield his visor, squinting into the brilliant rose-gold glow. And as his optics adjust he realises what it is he’s looking at. It’s an ocean of bone-white sand, stretching pale and undulant out onto a searingly bright horizon. He can’t quite tell where the world ends and the sky begins. A dry wind whispers across the dunes; sand shifts before his eyes, rippling and flowing as easily and freely as water.

“What do you think?” First Aid asks.

Pipes blinks. The afterimage of the faraway dunes lights up his vision, green and ghostly. Already he can feel the heat baking off First Aid’s plating, burning into his own. It feels wonderful. For the first time since he woke up, he feels like he is alive.

“Warm,” Pipes says, after a moment. “Warm, and kinda beautiful.”

“Beautiful.” First Aid lets out a small laugh; held this close, Pipes can feel the vibration of it through his own plating. “This planet is uninhabited. Actually, it’s completely incapable of supporting life, organic or synthetic. Right now, its elliptical orbit puts it far enough from its suns that we won’t end up smelted if we step out of the shade, but the rest of the time the heat is so fierce that nobody in their right mind would consider landing here. Not even for a few minutes. As it is, we’ve only got about half an hour maximum. This planet is deadly, Pipes, and you think it’s beautiful.”

Pipes feels a curious sinking behind his chestplate, like his spark has dimmed just a tiny bit. “That was kind of stupid of me, wasn’t it?” he says, staring up at the sky – a blue so pale it’s almost white, a merciless void without so much as a scrap of cloud to quell the ferocity of the twin suns. It would be so easy to die out here. How could he not have realised?

“You don’t understand,” First Aid says, staring out into the distance. “What you said – the look in your optics when we stepped out of the ship. Nobody but you would’ve reacted like that. You saw beauty in a terrible place. You saw the best in something awful.” He adjusts his grip, lifting Pipes a little higher but keeping him close, holding him steady. _I’ve got you._ “You can’t let what happened to you stop you from living your life,” he says. “Drift would say you got a second chance because you still have a purpose to fulfil. And Ratchet…well, he’d roll his eyes and say Drift’s talking a load of scrap. But you came on the Lost Light for a reason. And when we fix you up – because we _will_ fix you up- I hope that you’ll remember what those reasons were. In time, I think you will.”

Heat burrows beneath the uneven seams of his plating, steaming the inside of his visor. He reaches up to slide it back, exposing his optics to the full intensity of the two burning suns.

“Don’t tell Ratchet about this,” First Aid says, somewhat sheepish. “He’d probably fire me out the airlock if he knew.”

“It’s okay,” Pipes says. “I can keep a secret.”

Sand spirals upwards in a fierce gust of wind. The dunes shift, slowly, the world reconfiguring itself before his eyes, over and over, a new pattern every time. Life goes on. Even in a place like this, life goes on.

“It is kinda beautiful,” he murmurs.


End file.
